A fraudster who pawned former Premier League star Edgar Davids’ £188,000 modern art collection failed to turn up to court to be sentenced, claiming she had been struck with a bag on her way to the airport.

Nabila Habiby, 39, obtained £31,500 in loans by handing over 37 paintings and works of art belonging to Davids, after the former Tottenham midfielder had trusted her to put his possessions in storage during a house move.

Davids only realised his paintings had gone when Habiby defaulted on the loans, the pawn shops sold the art to collectors around the world, and one got in touch with him to inquire about the history of the painting.

Habiby pleaded guilty in September 2025 to two counts of fraud, and she was set free on bail with a warning that she could face up to 34 months in prison.

But more than a year later, she still has not been sentenced.

The first attempt to sentence her, in March, was derailed when she made a failed bid to withdraw her guilty pleas.

Her case was listed for sentence again, but Habiby was absent from the dock at Wood Green Crown Court.

“I received correspondence this morning from my solicitor, at around 9.30am, saying on her way to the airport to come here she had been hit on the head by a piece of luggage en route,” said defence barrister Hannah Thomas.

“She had a concussion, since she passed out, and was taken to the hospital where she remains on a drip.”

Judge Emma Deacon KC said she had been handed “inadequate” medical evidence from Belgium, where Habiby now lives, to support her story.

But the judge agreed to adjourn the sentencing hearing anyway, so that the original judge who oversaw the case when guilty pleas were entered could pass sentence.

It is now almost five years since Habiby was first charged after a Metropolitan Police investigation, over fraud offences that date back to 2015 and 2016.

The court heard Davids handed Habiby, a wealth manager, the keys to his home in Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire, when he was moving to an apartment in central London in December 2014.

She took his collection of works by artists Paul Insect and Ron English, which he had bought from the Opera Gallery in New York between 2006 and 2012, to pawnbrokers.

Some of the paintings have since been recovered, but 25 works of art are gone.

Habiby has been ordered to come to court on September 23 to be sentenced. She has also been told to provide a full medical report to back up her absence from court.